Saddam trial resumes with outbursts, chaos

February 14, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (LAT) -- A ruffled Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants, one in pajamas, were forced to appear in court Monday without their attorneys and face witnesses reluctant to testify against them in a messy trial session marked by frequent shouting matches. Amid the chaotic din of the three-hour session, the prosecution managed to present several documents suggesting that the upper echelons of Saddam's government and security apparatus knew about and directed the persecution of villagers in Dujail, where the former Iraqi president was the target of a 1982 assassination attempt. But a witness summoned to verify the documents, former Saddam aide Ahmed Hussein Khudayer al-Samarrai, told the court that he couldn't recall the provenance and circumstances surrounding the documents. From the outset, the proceedings were punctuated by the outbursts from Saddam, his half brother Barzan Ibrahim and the other defendants. "Long live Iraq!" Saddam shouted as he entered the courtroom, wearing an ankle-length "dishdasha" robe, jacket and slippers rather than his signature dark tailored suit. Lead prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi, speaking later on Al-Arabiya satellite television, said Saddam only agreed to enter the courtroom after guards threatened to pick him up and carry him inside. "This is not a court," Saddam said, as Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel Rahman repeatedly told him and other defendants to be quiet. "This is a joke."